Hillary Versus Rudy in NY

Hillary wins New York. But Rudy makes it a race. A costly race. And maybe he wins California.

As an upstate New Yorker, I have to disagree with JPOD, at least on Hillary winning NY. I think by ’08, the luster will have faded from a Sen. Clinton, substantially among the many erstwhile RINOs, certainly upstate NYers, and Rudy I think outruns her in his NYC home turf.

New York politics will always be upstate versus downstate. State-wide or nationwide candidates succeed either because they don’t play against or within that dynamic, or find a way to win both camps. In other words, in typical Dem versus GOP, the state goes blue unless there’s some really G*d-awful Dem candidate. (Yes, worse than Kerry, readers can discern.)

Hillary won over enough upstate Republicans (who were really clueless and wary of the overly youthful and “out-on-the-Island” Lazio), and has aggressively courted the Red-tinted upstaters with her National Security stands and plenty of pork. That wins her a landslide for ’06 Senate seat. Many actually like her upstate, but actually turn against her on suggestions she leave Congress and try for the Presidency. That was a big part of her message in ’04, one she absolutely needed to make, “I’m not running in ’04.”

This dynamic all changes from ’06 to ’08. Rudy pulls majorities in NYC, Hillary loses a good deal of her support upstate. Upstaters, while they would normally resist the appeal of a city pol, love Rudy for NYC cleanup and of course, 9/11.

About Me

Jeff has served in the US Army, Army Reserves, and NY Army National Guard since 1983. He deployed to Iraq as First Sergeant for the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 642 Military Intelligence Battalion (MI BN), stationed at Tikrit, Iraq. 642 MI BN soldiers returned from the deployment without any combat injuries, and Jeff was awarded a Bronze Star for the deployment.
In civilian life, Jeff consults as a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) since 2001. Jeff is an Army certified trainer in Intelligence disciplines, and a certified trainer in Project Management. Jeff blogs at here at Dadmanly and contributes to the MILBLOGS group blog at MILBLOGS.